Chemical and Environmental Engineering Group

Yolanda Segura has a BSc in Chemistry (Analytical Science) from Complutense University / Dublin City University (1998), gained her Masters of Science at Queen’s University (UK, 2000), was awarded a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Antwerp (Belgium, 2005) and a Master in Business Administration at UNED (2009). Following her MSc. in Environmental Chemistry, she starts working at the Civil Engineering department at Queen´s University in a research work involving water analysis and supervised by Prof. Pauline MacKinnon (2001). Subsequently, she moved to Belgium where she undertakes doctoral studies in the area of Adsorption and Catalysis with Prof. Etienne Vansant at the University of Antwerp. During this time she is a visiting researcher in the group of Prof. Bert Weckhuysen at the University of Utrecht and in the group of Prof. Roman Dziembaj at Jagiellonian University. After that, she works at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia to conduct a multi-disciplinary post-doctoral research with Dr. Javier Pérez-Ramírez (2006). She is presently working as a Juan de la Cierva researcher in the Chemical and Environmental Technology Department at the Rey Juan Carlos University (2007). Her research expertise ranges from materials science to heterogeneous catalysis and catalytic processes, and currently relates to the environmental catalysis, particularly, the elimination of contaminants in water. She has been lecturing different subjects at the Rey Juan Carlos University for the Environmental Science degree and Masters Degree.





  • Integrated processes for monitoring and treatment of emerging contaminants for water reuse (MOTREM, Water JPI Pilot Call)

    Funding : WATER JPI - Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad - Acciones de Programación Conjunta Internacional - (Water JPI JPIW2013-121)
    Start / End Years : 2014 - 2017
    URL : http://motrem.eu/
    Principal Investigator : Marugán Aguado, Javier
    Research Team : - Casado Merino, Cintia - López Muñoz, Mª José - Martín Sómer, Miguel - Martínez Castillejo, Fernando - Marugán Aguado, Javier - Molina Gil, Raúl - Pablos Carro, Cristina - Pariente Castilla, Isabel - Segura Urraca, Yolanda 

      Show summary: The MOTREM project is a Water JPI project that focuses on the development of integrated processes for monitoring and treatment of emerging contaminants (ECs), improving the efficiency of the removal of these pollutants in urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), especially for water reuse. The project aims to provide new technologies for water treatment and/or improving the existing ones through the development of integrated processes for monitoring and treatment of ECs in the current waterline of municipal wastewater treatment plants, especially focusing on the aspect of water reuse. For this goal, the project combines cross- and multi-disciplinary expertise on water treatment processes design and engineering, analytical chemistry and ecotoxicology applied to ECs that guarantee the generation not only on new scientific knowledge but also of innovative commercial solutions to the market.














Anaerobic digestion of purple phototrophic bacteria – The release step of the Partition-Release-Recover concept

Hülsen, T.; Luc, Y.; Rodríguez, I.; Segura, Y.; Martínez, F.; Puyol, D.; Batstone D. M.


Contamination of N-poor wastewater with emerging pollutants does not affect the performance of purple phototrophic bacteria and the subsequent resource recovery potential 

de las Heras, I., Molina, R., Segura, Y., Hülsen, T., Molina, M. C., Gonzalez-Benitez, N., Melero, J. A., Mohedano, A. F.,  Martínez, F., Puyol, D.


ß-galactosidase covalent immobilization over large-pore mesoporous silica supports for the production of high galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS)

González-Delgado, I.; Segura, Y.; Martín, A.; López-Muñoz, M. J.; Morales, G.


Characterization and inmobilization of engineered sialidases from Trypanosoma rangeli for transsiallylation

Zeuner, B.; González-Delgado, I.; Holck, J.; Morales, G.; López-Muñoz, M. J.; Segura, Y.; Meyer, A. S.; Mikkelsen, J. D.


Wastewater sludges pretreated by different oxidation systems at mild conditions to promote the biogas formation in anaerobic processes.

Segura, Y.; Puyol, D.; Ballesteros, L.; Martínez, F.; Melero, J.A.


Optimisation of the synthesis of high galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) from lactose with b-galactosidase from Kluyveromyces lactis

González-Delgado, I.; López-Muñoz, M. J.; Morales, G.; Segura, Y.


Simple and efficient treatment of high-strength industrial waste water using commercial zero-valent iron

Segura, Y.; Martínez, F.; Melero, J. A.


Zr-SBA-15 Lewis acid catalyst: Activity in Meerwein Ponndorf Verley reduction

Iglesias, J.; Melero, J. A.; Morales, G.; Moreno, J.; Segura, Y.; Paniagua, M.; Cambra, A.; Hernández, B.


Zero valent iron (ZVI) mediated Fenton degradation of industrial wastewater: Treatment performance and characterization of final composites

Segura, Y.; Martínez, F.; Melero, J. A.; Fierro, J. L. G.


Pharmaceutical wastewater degradation: effective and economical treatment using waste-metallic iron shavings

Segura, Y.; Martínez, F.; Melero, J. A.


Coupling membrane separation and photocatalytic oxidation processes for the degradation of pharmaceutical pollutants

Martínez, F.; López-Muñoz, M. J.; Aguado, J.; Melero, J. A.; Arsuaga, J.; Sotto, A.; Molina, R.; Segura, Y.; Pariente, M. I.; Revilla, A.; Cerro, L.; Carenas, G.


Effective pharmaceutical wastewater degradation by Fenton oxidation with zero-valent iron

Segura, Y.; Martínez, F.; Melero, J. A.


Immobilization of active and stable goethite coated-films by a dip-coating process and its application for photo-Fenton systems

Molina, R.; Segura, Y.; Martínez, F.; Melero, J. A.


Enhancement of the advanced Fenton process (Fe0/H2O2) by ultrasound for the mineralization of phenol

Segura, Y.; Martínez, F.; Melero, J. A.; Molina, R.; Chand, R.; Bremmer, D. H.


Drugs of abuse in surface and tap waters of the Tagus River basin: Heterogeneous photo-Fenton process is effective in their degradation

Valcárcel, Y.; Martínez, F.; González-Alonso, S.; Segura, Y.; Catalá, M.; Molina, R.; Montero-Rubio, J. C.; Mastroianni, N.; López de Alda, M.; Postigo, C.; Barceló, D.


Photo-Fenton treatment dramatically reduces pharmaceutical contamination from Madrid river water samples bur does not elimnate ecotoxicity: Development and application of a naturally miniaturised bioassay based on fern spores

Rodríguez-Gil J. L.; Catalá, M.; González, S.; Romo, R.; Valcarcel, Y.; Segura Y.; Molina R.; Melero J. A.; Martínez F.


Degradation of phenolic aqueous solutions by high frequency sono-Fenton systems (US-Fe2O3/SBA-15-H2O2)

Bremmer, D. H.; Molina, R.; Martínez, F.; Melero, J. A.; Segura, Y.


Integrated heterogeneous sono-photo Fenton processes for the degradation of phenolic aqueous solutions

Segura, Y.; Molina, R.; Martínez, F.; Melero, J. A.


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